Tsubasa's Big Adventure
by Malluchan
Summary: Nature has always worked in mysterious ways. When it creates a portal to another dimension, Tsubasa falls through! Can Marsh, Julia, Zippy, and Marley get him back to his own universe before Shogun Steel starts up?
1. Tall Grass

So I made an amazzzzzing new friend named Julia and she likes Beyblade too. Julia, if you're reading this, it's for you. I got this plot bunny and here I am writing it. I guess she inspired me. Juli, if you're reading this, yes, I put you in it...probably everybody'll even skip this note...I am just rambling because I don't know if I've ever started a story with no author's note...here we go!

Written from my perspective. This is in my universe where Beyblade is a show, but trust me, it gets better ;)

* * *

Before leaving the house, I take one last look out my window and reflect. It's a thing that I do. I'm not even sure why, but it's always been there. So here I am, and my ride is idling at the end of my driveway, but I am distracted as usual, staring out the window.

It's rained like crazy these past few weeks. The grass is waist-high, tall enough to lose a couple of cats or a small child. Julia tells me that her father is very irritated, that the lawn is so overgrown and just won't stay cut.

Then I catch sight of the calendar taped to my window; I've put it there specifically for this purpose. I look out this window more often than I look in the mirror, and my forgetful mind needs a schedule reminder just about constantly. My eyes fall upon the Beyblade sticker at the bottom.

About one month until Shogun Steel opens. Excitement rises in me like it has every morning, along with uneasiness. The stars align on that day. I'm only hoping me and Julia's hard work has paid off.

Only time will tell.

Juli's mum honks at me from the end of the driveway and I hastily turn from the window, forcing myself to focus. (Not an easy task, mind you.)

As soon as I catch Juli's eyes through the window, I can tell that she's thinking the same thing I am. "Three weeks", she mouths at me.

We get to the University and Marley is waiting for us on the front steps. We hurry in; it's time to push aside the doubt and let the day begin.

* * *

I expect mornings to pass as they always have; a text from Zippy waking me up screaming my name in all caps. Coffee-soaked cereal gobbled down hastily. Books in the bag, a glance out the window, and Mrs. Alvarez honking at me from the end of the driveway. Because for the longest time, they have started this way. All this summer, the same morning.

Juli, Marley, Zippy, and I have all-summer Junior Uni Arts programs. The University brings in high school kids and educates them in the arts. We go there every day. It's almost like being in school.

Of course, nature has a different plan for the four of us. Because today, as I mark off another day towards the prospect of Shogun Steel and aligned stars, I see a twitch in the overgrown grass outside. Like I said, our cats go in there all the time to play Ferocious Predator, so at first I'm not worried. But then I see grey fur.

We do not have a grey cat.

I throw open the window and banged on the wall loudly. This normally scares away the raccoons. When you live in a rural area, you just learn things like this.

"HEY!" I yell. "Get outta here!" I can almost feel Juli's mum squinting at me from the car window. _Honk. Honk._

Something in the grass startles, and then I am the one being startled as a human sits up.

No, no, no...

I whirl, grabbing the calendar. Is it possible? Did we calculate wrong? The stars are not supposed to line up for three more weeks. But nothing else can explain the appearance of this human in my front yard. Because he is spookily familiar. Because this has happened every single year.

I dig around under the bed and find what I'm looking for: one leather jacket, one baseball cap, one pair of jeans, and one grey t-shirt, pilfered from my dad's closet as of last year. I am so thankful right now for how messy I tend to be.

Within moments, he is dressed as a normal human, looking unfailingly confused and very very lost. I manage to shove him into Juli's car, telling her mum that he's my friend. Juli gives me a confused look, and I know she's not comprehending this, but she'll understand soon enough. For now we just need to get going.


	2. Plans

Juli's eyes pop out at me from behind her glasses. "Tsubasa?" she mouths. "Miscount?"

"Apparently so."

Tsubasa does not look like he wants to be in this car with us.

How could we have miscounted the weeks until the next alignment? More importantly, how did our failsafe fail?

Maybe it wasn't stellar alignment that caused the portal to reopen. Maybe it was something else. That would mean that in three weeks, the portal will open again anyway. My mind is reeling. We need to find Marley.

But Marley isn't waiting for us, which means he's working. When Marley isn't here, I have to be the smart one.

Juli pants to keep up with me, dragging Tsubasa along behind her. Then Zippy bounds out from the doors on his giraffe-like legs, a heat-seeking, caffeinated torpedo. I scream and dive to the side before he crashes into me.

"Who's the friend, Marsh?"

"Who are you, and what have you done with Zippy?" I demand, sidestepping his question.

"I asked first, Midget Pie", he answers.

"Uhhh..."

"Darcy", Julia pipes up. Darcy? For real? Okay, then. We will work with it.

"Yes, Darcy O'Neil."

Tsubasa starts to speak, but Julia kicks him in the foot.

"Where did you find him?"

"Go to class, Zippy", I say, shoving past him and pulling Juli with me. Zippy follows us like a lost dog. We love the guy, but he really isn't very much help in this particular situation.

"You go to class!"

"No, you go to class."

"You."

"Zippy, I don't have time for this right now!"

"YOU go to class!"

"STOP IT", Julia and I both snap at the same time.

"Go to class, Darcy", Zippy tells Tsubasa. Once again, Tsubasa is about to speak, but Julia kicks him.

I give 'Darcy' Marley's chair, right next to me. I need to be able to keep an eye on him in case he starts freaking out. That happened in case #3. Suffice it to say, it was not good.

Zippy takes the chair next to Tsubasa. "Zippy, you better not mess with Darcy during class." The name Darcy sticks in my mouth and feels sharp on my tongue. It doesn't fit, but like I said, we'll work with it.

"What?" demands Zippy innocently. "I never mess with anybody."

This does not explain to me why Marley stands up from his seat with his shoelaces tied together every single day.

"Don't", I repeat.

"You're the ones who keep kicking him", grumbles Zippy.

"Zippy, behave", Julia tells him. Tsubasa looks like he wants to run straight down the hallway and never look back.

The instructors let us have a break mid-morning. Juli and I drag Tsubasa into the little space behind the vending machines because his hair is slipping out from under the baseball cap. All that hair of his is a real problem.

"What are we gonna do with you?" I ask him.

"I really don't know where I am or what on earth is going on", he answers. "If you could please stop making me follow you around so I could catch a bus back home, that would be great."

"No can do", Julia tells him. "We're not exactly in Japan anymore, if you haven't noticed."

He sighs. "I sort of figured that. Is that why you wouldn't let me talk all morning?"

"It's a dangerous world", says a deep voice from the back corner. I shriek and scramble towards the end of the little passage, but Marley emerges from the darkness, laughing his face off.

"So I'm guessing we calculated wrong this year."

"Yep", Julia affirms. "You're back from work early."

"Actually I hid back here and slept all morning. I had a headache, but it's gone now", he tells us. "I'm sorry for scaring you, Marsh."

I shake my head. "No you're not."

"I'm calling an emergency meeting", Julia informs us. "My house. After class. We need to talk."

"Who's that guy?" asks Tsubasa.

"Not now, Darcy. Mum won't be home 'til late. Marley - "

"I have to go straight home", he tells us. "Sidney needs help with his stuff for summer camp." Marley's little brother was getting packed off to some piney forested retreat for a few months. Since Marley couldn't come this afternoon, that meant I'd have to be the smart one for a little while longer.

"I want to go", pipes up Zippy from the entrance. I didn't even know he was there.

"Not now, Zippy. We have to do girl stuff", Juli tells him.

"I could use a manicure." He scrutinises his fingernails thoughtfully.

"No, Zippy."

"Is Darcy going?" he demands. "Did you replace me? I look way better than him!"

"No, we didn't replace you! Darcy needs help with, um, an extracurricular project. You'll just distract us."

"I promise I won't", he tells us.

Julia finally manages to get rid of Zippy. She's always been good this way: she's the semi-sensible one.

* * *

We walk to Juli's house from the University, with Tsubasa in tow. He keeps babbling about plane tickets and how he'll pay us back and some sort of ceremony he has to go to. I block him out. I don't think he's really grasped the actuality of this situation yet. If he goes back to Japan, Beyblade will not exist, because we are in a different universe. Unfortunately.

Once we've arrived, Julia pulls the double-stuf oreos out of the freezer and also the soymilk. Tsubasa once again looks confused, which he's been all day, poor thing. He doesn't understand why we freeze the oreos. I can't say I can explain it myself, but it is what it is.

Julia slaps a stack of things down on the table: a calendar, Marley's binders, her notebook, and Zippy's notebook. It always makes me sad to look at it. Zippy put his name on it in huge letters, complete with smiley face drawings and the subtitle 'most epical boy in the world'.

"Why does that say Zippy on it?" asks Tsubasa.

"It used to belong to Zippy."

"Then why do you have it?"

Julia sighs. We never talk about this. Ever. "For the same reason he wasn't allowed at this meeting. Zippy doesn't remember any of this."

"What happened to you has happened exactly six times in the past", I tell him. "In another dimension, a pocket exempt from time and space opens up and black-holes people and objects and animals into a different universe. It can happen because of a tornado, the summer solstice, or shifting in the tectonic plates. But mostly it happens when the stars align."

"It happened six years ago", Julia adds. "We were eight. It sent a jackalope through to Marsh's front yard. We thought we'd predicted when it would happen again, but we were three weeks off."

"Last year Marley locked the pocket, but apparently his method had a weak link. I just don't see what he did wrong", I murmur.

"Sorry, but what does this have to do with Zippy?"

"Two years ago, it sent people", Juli tells him. "Some very angry people. Zip got captured and his mind blocked out everything to do with the pocket. Now he's oblivious to the whole thing."

"Wait." Tsubasa sags in the chair and pulls the baseball cap off, running his hand through his hair, sending a scattering of various bobby pins and hair ties to the floor. "You're saying I'm in a completely different dimension now? If I went home, it wouldn't really be...home?"

"Yes."

"Marsh", Julia says, drawing my attention to the calendar. "In three weeks, Shogun Steel is supposed to open. It can't open without him. There will be no season 4."

"Shogun Steel?"

"Your world connects to ours through cable television somehow. Marley could explain it better than me."

"In three weeks, I'm supposed to be appointed the new Director", he says. "I never knew anything about TV."

"We've never created our own pocket", Juli muses. "I don't know if we can."

"Marley could tell us." I groan, dropping my forehead to the table. "There are so many things we need Marley for, but he's so busy..."

"We'll talk to him tomorrow", she comforts me. "We still have three weeks."

Marley's absence always stresses me out. There are so many questions that I can't answer. We've never pocketed on a deadline before; Marley has always been able to predict when the next one will occur. At this point, though, we cannot afford to wait.


End file.
